A distribution list is a grouping of contacts that is often employed in an email or other collaboration system to facilitate sending an email to a number of recipients. For example, a user could create a distribution list named “Friends” that groups together the email addresses of a number of the user's friends. Then, when the user wants to send an email to each of the friends, the user can simply specify the Friends distribution list in the To: field of the email and a separate copy of the email will be sent to each friend.
Recently, a number of collaboration platforms have been created to facilitate group interactions. These collaboration platforms typically provide a group communication interface that functions similar to an email mailbox (hereinafter “mailbox”) except that each member of the group has shared access to the group's content. For example, Microsoft's Office 365 includes a feature known as Office 365 Groups (“O365 Groups”). An O365 Group is a logical grouping of a number of users which allows each user of the group to have shared access to content, including communications, of the group. These groups, therefore, function similar to distribution lists in that they facilitate group communication.
FIG. 1 illustrates a user interface 100 that generally illustrates how O365 Groups and other similar collaboration tools are structured. In this example, it is assumed that user interface 100 is displayed to a user, User_123, who is a member of a number of groups including Group A, Group B, and Group C. The left-hand side of user interface 100 comprises a navigation pane 101 that includes a typical email folders section 101a and a groups section 101b. As indicated by the underline, User_123 has selected Group A from within groups section 101b. As a result, user interface 100 also displays a selected group section 102 which lists a number of conversations that have been created within Group A. As shown, each conversation includes a title (which is similar to the title of an email originally sent to a distribution list), an indication of the user that created the conversation (which is similar to the sender of the original email), and a summary of the content of the conversation (which is similar to the body of the original email and the body of any email sent in response to the original email). Although not shown, each conversation may also include an indicator of the users (or at least the number of users) that have participated in the conversation (which, in terms of distribution lists, would represent which users have responded to the original email).
As indicated by the shading, User_123 has selected Conversation A within selected group section 102. As a result, user interface 100 is displaying the communications of Conversation A within a contents section 103. As shown, the title 103a of Conversation A (which is defined as part of creating the first communication 103a1 in the conversation) is shown at the top of contents section 103. Then, each individual communication 103a1-103a3 within conversation 103a is listed. Each communication identifies who created the communication and then lists the contents of the communication.
Although not shown in FIG. 1, a group can provide access to shared documents. Such documents could be attached to individual group communications (similar to an email attachment) or may be associated generally with a conversation or a group (e.g., via a direct upload). Similarly, a group may include a shared calendar and other features that are often provided within a typical email interface. A key benefit of groups is that the content of the group, including all communications sent within the group, is single-instanced and persistent. In other words, a communication from a member of the group to the group can be viewed as a single email being stored in a shared location. In contrast, with a distribution list, a separate copy of the email would be created and sent to each member of the distribution list.
FIG. 2 provides a simplified representation of the data structures that can be used to define a group which in this case is Group A. As shown, Group A is defined by the members data structure 201 which lists each member that belongs to the group. Group A is also defined by a number of conversation data structures 202a, 202b which define the content of the communications in the conversation as well as the sender of such communications. The actual content would be stored centrally to enable shared access by any member of the group. This example is intended only to illustrate how a group employs single-instanced content and is not intended to represent the specific structure employed by any particular implementation of a collaboration platform including Office 365.
The fact that group content is single-instanced content provides various benefits. For example, if a user is added to a group, the user would receive access to all previous conversations and content within the group since this data is centrally stored. In contrast, if a user is added to a distribution list, that user will not have access to any previous communications that were sent to the distribution list because the user would not have been a recipient of any of the previous communications.
Although it is possible to map a distribution list to a group, doing so does not provide group access to communications previously sent to the distribution list. Such a mapping would only create a new group that includes the members of the old distribution list. However, any communications that had been sent using the distribution list would not be available within the new group. Therefore, the group could be used for future communications, but all previous communications within the distribution list would only be accessible within the traditional mailbox of each member of the distribution list.